Random Cricket post..

Ah, what a wonderful series it was. Glad we managed to hold on to our Test Series victory. If u ask me, NZ surely is one of the best places for us Indians to tour. Not only is it the most beautiful country in the world (probably), the kiwis are also noticably gentler and cooler than say the Aussies, Englishmen or even the South Africans. I was pretty impressed with Ryder and Taylor and the overall approach of the kiwis. They don't have superstars in their lineup anymore (a la Chris Cairns, Martin Crowe, Hadlee) but they do have plenty of heart and their performance shows it. To come back from a thrashing in the very first test and hold their nerves for the remaining 2 against a team that's riding on a wave of rich form is no easy task. As a team, they can only get better.
And as for the Indian side, we had a terrible tour last time, one of worst i'd ever seen. This is perhaps our most flamboyant batting lineup in years but it's really too early to compare with the classy Aussie lineup of the late 90's/early 2k. We shld really tour these parts once every coupla years or so. Just the sight of the greenery bordering the playing field, in stark contrast to the howling crowds (in our native parts back in India) makes one wish this is where cricket should always be played.
What sucks though is the time difference. Back in India (more specifically Calcutta/Kolkata where i come from), live broadcast starts at 3:15am!! So even though i'm wired up to wake up on the dot, it's generally a combination sleep and action on the screen thereafter...

Hell o

As is the norm, been in a haze of weed these days. Watched a lotta stoner movies, Roling Thunder, How high, Half Baked apart from the new discovered Cheech & Chong movies. Been reading about Weed, it's legality in various parts of the world. Meaning to see the newly released DevD. Heard it's perhaps the first authentic Indian Stoner movie!! Right now, the stereo's blaring You & your friend - Dire Straits, a band i haven't listened to much in the last 6-7 yrs or so..Am thinking seriously about giving it all away and gambling on a totally different level of thought. Perhaps i'm a stoned junkie, perhaps a wannabe revolutionary cool guy..but this is my way of introspection, finding out the true meaning of life. Perhaps all of us go through this at some point and deal with it differently. I think i'm gonna start writing more often...

Just another regular day of late...

Been spending the last few days in a haze of booze and weed. The weather in Cal is not too great these days. The summer seems to last forever, bringing with it the usual sweat and searing heat. Beer is a valuable commodity in these times. The shops in turn are limited in their brand offerings. Our pockets seem abnormally lavish when it comes to booze. The car often substitutes for a makeshift bar. We seem to have covered a lot of calcutta in our drug induced haze...
Music is a fixture and the car stereo somehow manages to keep up with our old and grayed cd's and eclectic tastes. Somehow though, everything looks familiar, a pattern that we tend to follow almost always. Have our ambitions reached a plateau? Do we need a radical change in direction? Or has life left us behind......I don't know....sure is a scary thought though...

Bored witless..

Nothing much going on right now. A few more days to go till i catch the flight back home. Been seeing a lot of movies lately. The last was City Slickers, a silly Billy Crystal comedy suggested only as a one off Timepass though it's not that bad really. The last few days had a madness grow inside me. One of my passing fads i guess. The current such fad is making movies. I spent the last couple of weeks scouring the net, learning about prosumer quality dv and hdv camcorders in the hope of buying one. Fixed my buyer profile on ebay, bid on a number of cameras, took inputs from my kaka in bombay and finally this morning decided against buying a second hand camera. After all, they're not coming cheap either. So i have decided to approach it in a different way. Instead of buying a camera, i'm gonna write up a solid screenplay first and then take it from there.

Current obsessions..

I'm on a movie collecting spree nowadays. I'm inspired by sites like listverse, imdb, time etc. to seek out movies that have been voted among the top 100 movies of all time. However, i only download those that are not too serious or philosphical or stuff that makes you think life is meaningless and all that shit. My romantic, mushy days are long gone so no uve got mail, sleepless in seattle or walk in the clouds for me though i did enjoy moments from those movies once upon a time. As i touch 34, i realize that my sensibilites have changed, my perceptions are different, i'm growing slightly bald and i'm just about managing to keep my tummy in control. However, my goal in life remains just the same. I'm still clueless about where i'm headed and where i'll end. Somedays i think about getting into the movies, another day i wanna play the keyboard and start a lousy band but then again i reflect on the dog farm i plan to own or the rock pub whose management will have me as their boss in good ol' sector V back in town. So all in all, i'm really a confused creep really. But then again, i guess i like these aimless days, i do still have weed once in a while and booze, well, ahem..once a week and that one day, i go beserk with the bottle really only to have the lousiest saturday morning ever!!
Burgess Hill is a sleepy town. Nothin' ever happens here. There's a mall called Martlets which has a few shops you can buy groceries at, a decent enough library that lends you books for free to pass your days, a pound shop to satisfy the meagre pocket and a KFC and pizza shop to top it up. There are a couple of pubs and chinese eateries but i haven't gotten around to them yet. Office and work is nothing to boast about. Home is about 10 mins walk from work which is generally a decent trip if it doesn't bloody rain or blow. There's a decent enough park which i have to cross on the way and towards the evening there are young turks floating around on roller blades and in the mornings, people on their morning walks with various interesting breeds of dogs. The saving grace is a wine shop that's close to my house and a fellow who lives downstairs and supplies the occassional weed. I've been seeing a lot of Woody Allen movies lately and i have to say, i simple love the guy. He's simply ageless and a true genious, though he has streaks of racism in him and maybe a bigot at heart. I do think the best of the lot is definitely Annie Hall though i do have a few more of his movies to finish. Another guy i've been into is Kevin Smith and i absolutely love his stuff too, maybe even more than Allen's. Someday, i'll be inspired to go that way, i'm sure. Till then, i'm gonna go on blogging and free my mind of all the thoughts that keep clogging it up.

Salt Lake City, Ritesh Das, heavybison

I think i came to this city almost 9 months ago. It's almost a large town really, rather than a city, with several satellite townships bordering it. Surrounded by two different mountain ranges on either side(who's names are too difficult to spell, one was wasatch, i think) and a huge lake on one side, it was a strikingly beautiful view as the flight was landing. Stuff that i had only seen in movies, stupid romantic hindi ones, where the hero and heroine came running towards each other in the middle of a song. It was the first week of July, if i remmember correctly, of the year 2006. The warm summer breeze was a pleasant surprise, as if coaxing me into a welcome first up before someone came and warned me about the harsh winters. We took a bus, a hotel shuttle(Sheraton, i think it was) from the airport and both of us gazed out of the window in awe at this new place as the bus sped by. It looked like a quiet, peaceful hamlet and the first thing that struck us were the streets, wider than any we had ever seen, almost as broad as a smallish river. Habitation was far and few, at least till we reached downtown, where our hotel was located. The room on the 11th floor was wonderfully cozy and the view from the balcony was spectacular. That was the beginning of what would be a long hard year ahead. The summer went by followed by autumn and then winter. By that time, we were comfortably settled in our own apartment. Life was tough, the winter harsh. Many a morning, i stood waiting at the bus stop with the snow lashing all around me, my fingers and face frozen stiff. My jacket, thick as it was felt like paper napkin, the leather gloves, purchased at a discount, woefully insufficient to protect my hands, the wind, tearing through my body as if i had no right to be there. How i ached for my good old hometown, hot and sweaty, warm and precious...

heavybison rock heavy metal judas priest led zep nirvana toys in the attic rocks off doors i wish i die listening to rock.....a cerebral attack...no pain...wish death was so easy... :-) it never is...

It's 1:47 Am. I'm listening to Rocks off - Aerosmith. I'm surprised i didn't get hooked on to this album earlier. I'm 32 now. I'm almost 15 years late on this one. But then again...maybe i wasn't mature enuf for this when i should have been. Back then i was crazy about L.A.Woman(No regrets, mind you) and Apetite for Destruction. Come to think of it, i've been late on so many good stuff i should have....miss my grass..